An exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania, Australia by the American artist Kirsha Kaechele titled “Ladies Lounge” is installing a toilet in the gallery, the BBC reported Tuesday.
The exhibition, which was previously accessible only to those who identify as a woman, was closed on Monday after a man sued the museum after being denied entry.
The show, which opened in 2020, is a lushly decorated area of the museum with chic black and white floors and green velvet drapes in which champagne is served by male butlers to visitors who can leisurely peruse some of the most notable works in the Mona’s collection including a Sidney Nolan, a Pablo Picasso and antiquities from Mesopotamia, Central America and Africa.
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Jason Lau, a man from New South Wales, tried to visit the exhibition in April 2023, but was denied entry. Lau lodged a complaint with Tasmania’s civil and administrative tribunal, in which he said the museum is violating Tasmania’s anti-discrimination act by failing to provide “a fair provision of goods and services in line with the law” to him and other visitors who paid for museum tickets but do not identify as women.
In March, the tribunal ruled that within a month the museum had to allow “persons who do not identify as ladies” into the exhibition. That time period expired on Monday. The Mona appealed the decision on Tuesday claiming that the decision took “too narrow a view on women’s historical and ongoing societal disadvantage” and how the Ladies Lounge can “promote equal opportunity.”
In court, Kaechele argued that the discriminatory nature of the show was exactly the point. “Ladies Lounge” was inspired by old Australian pubs, which until 1965 were barred women from entry. “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” she said, according to a report from the Guardian. “OK, they experience the artwork differently than women, but men are certainly experiencing the artwork as it’s intended.”
Kaechele used the court room as a kind of extension of the exhibition, or at least the idea behind it, when she showed up with 25 female supporters, all dressed in matching navy blue suits and nylon stockings. Soundless, the women performed “synchronized choreographed movements, including leg crossing, leaning forward together and peering over the top of their spectacles” in unison during the proceedings. Once the proceedings closed, the troupe left to the sound of Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible.”
Kaechele said she plans to “work around” the court’s order that the exhibition be closed until it is made available to all by making the space “compliant” with state regulations and installing a women’s toilet and a church.
“There is a fabulous toilet coming to the Ladies Lounge, and so in that sense the Ladies Lounge will operate as a ladies’ room. It’s a toilet that is celebrated the world round. It is the greatest toilet, and men won’t be allowed to see it,” she said in Australian media reports, according to the BBC.
In an interview published by the Mona, Kaechele said men would be allowed in on Sundays, but only to learn ironing and laundry folding. “Women can bring in all their clean laundry and the men can go through a series of graceful movements (designed by a Rinpoche and refined by tai chi masters) to fold them.”